Justin Maese has the reputation of a sinker, slider pitcher who gets contact without many strikeouts. He reversed that on Wednesday with 12 strikeouts in seven innings. Bo Bichette, Andrew Guillotte, Roemon Fields and Raffy Lopez kept on hitting. Conner Greene had to battle through his start.
Buffalo
Buffalo outhit Gwinnett but a three run home run lost it for Buffalo. Luis Santos had been pitching better recently and he pitched OK on Wednesday. He only allowed three hits through five innings but one of them was that three run home run. John Stilson has been injury plagued over his Blue Jay career. This season he sports a nice 2.19 ERA but not all of his numbers are great. Through 24.2 innings Stilson has only allowed 17 hits. But he has walked 12 and has 23 strikeouts. He needs to tighten his control before he is ready for the big leagues.
Among the hitters, the hot stay hot. Roemon Fields and Raffy Lopez each picked up two more hits. Fields has 58 at-bats in AAA, Lopez has 48. They each need another 50 at-bats before we believe. Speaking of believing Jason Leblebijian had an OPS of 1027 in April and now 727 in May. Still decent for Leblebijian but not performance that demands a call-up.
New Hampshire
Conner Greene had a rough start on Wednesday. He was shaky from the start, walking the first hitter, followed by two singles leading to two runs. Greene hit a batter in the second, and gave up two more hits, and New Hampshire trailed 3-0. Greene seemed to get it together after the second and pitched six innings. He did allow a fourth run, a home run by Mike Olt who has 135 games in the big leagues. Greene's ERA is just under four, at 3.96. The Fisher Cat bullpen pitched three perfect innings, a rarity this season.
Andrew Guillotte has been on quite the run recently. In his last six games for Dunedin Guillotte was 10-21 and bumped his average from .256 to .293. He then went to Buffalo and went 1-4, his first AAA hit before splitting the difference and going to New Hampshire. On Tuesday Guillotte was 3-3 and was 2-3 with a walk on Wednesday. As a shorter outfielder, listed at 5'8", and as a guy who doesn't hit many home runs, Guillotte will find the odds against him. But he is an athlete, he played shortstop on Wednesday having played outfield most of the season. As a 24 year old in AA, Guillotte is picking the right time to have a stong season and he could get a utility role in the big leagues if he keeps progressing. Guillotte was the only hitter with two hits and the Fisher Cats did not have an extra base hit. Danny Jansen had a single and a walk to keep his average above 400. Jansen has only 21 AA at-bats, a small sample, and he has struck out just twice.
Dunedin
Dunedin were rained out keeping Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki from getting more playing time. Dunedin do have a doubleheader on Thursday but the two major leaguers will probably be on their way to Toronto.
Lansing
Lansing won a rain shortened seven inning affair. As mentioned up top Justin Maese had a career high 12 K game. On the other hand he did allow four runs and with that two home runs so I suspect he wasn't as down in the zone as he normally would be. Maese got off to a rough start, conceding 19 runs in his first three appearances. In his last four he has allowed ten runs and racked up 29 K's.
Bo Bichette just keeps on hitting, 3-3 in this game with two doubles. Plus he was hit by a pitch. His average is .371. Vlad Jr had one hit, a double, and walked. Brad Jones was 2-2 with a double, a walk and a sac fly. Lansing have a winning record but are five games out of a playoff spot. Two teams are killing it with winning percentages over 680 and the Eastern division is stronger than the west. I assume most of the prospects will stay with Lansing until at least they are eliminated from playoff contention for the first half.
3 Stars
3rd star: Andrew Guillotte
2nd star: Bo Bichette
1st star: Justin Maese
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